1That you study persistently and, leaving everything else aside, pursue this one aim, to make yourself better every day, I both approve and rejoice, and I do not only urge you to persevere, but I even beg you. 1But I warn you of this: do not, after the fashion of those who desire not to make progress but to be looked at, do things that would be conspicuous in your dress or way of life. 2Avoid rough attire, unshorn hair, a rather neglected beard, a declared hatred of silver, a bed laid on the ground, and whatever else ambition pursues by a perverse path. 2The very name of philosophy, even if it is handled modestly, is unpopular enough; 2what if we begin to withdraw ourselves from the customs of men?
2Within, let everything be different; let our outward face conform with the people. 3Let our toga not be glittering, nor yet dirty. 3Let us not have silver into which embossed work of solid gold has been sunk, but let us not think it a sign of frugality to have done without gold and silver. 3Let us aim at following a better life than the crowd, not a contrary one; 3otherwise we drive away from us and turn aside those whom we wish to be reformed. 3We bring about this too, that they are unwilling to imitate anything of ours, while they fear that they would have to imitate everything. 4This is the first thing philosophy promises: fellow-feeling, humanity and sociability.
4From this profession our unlikeness to others will separate us. 4Let us take care that those things by which we wish to win admiration are not ridiculous and hateful. 4Our purpose, surely, is to live according to nature; 4it is contrary to nature to torment one's body, to hate simple cleanliness, to seek out squalor, and to use food not only cheap but foul and repellent. 5Just as it is a mark of luxury to long for dainty things, so it is a mark of madness to shun ordinary things that can be had at no great cost. 5Philosophy demands frugality, not penance; and frugality need not be unkempt. 5This is the measure that pleases me: let our life be balanced between good morals and public ones; 5let all men look up to our life, but let them recognise it.
6'What then? 6Shall we do the same things as everyone else? 6Will there be no difference between us and them?' 6A very great one. 6Let anyone who has looked more closely know that we are unlike the crowd. 6Let anyone who has entered our house admire us rather than our furniture. 6He is a great man who uses earthenware as he uses silver. 6Nor is he a lesser man who uses silver as he uses earthenware. 6It is the mark of a weak mind to be unable to endure riches. 7But to share with you this day's small profit too, I have found in our Hecato that the limiting of desires also helps as a remedy for fear.
7'You will cease to fear,' he says, 'if you have ceased to hope.' 7You will say: 'How do things so different go side by side?' 7So it is, my Lucilius: though they seem to be at odds, they are joined together. 7Just as the same chain binds together the prisoner and the soldier guarding him, so these, which are so unlike, march side by side; 7fear follows hope. 8Nor am I surprised that they go together thus; 8both belong to a mind in suspense, both to a mind anxious with expectation of the future. 8But the chief cause of both is that we do not adapt ourselves to the present, but send our thoughts ahead into the distance.
8And so foresight, the greatest good of the human condition, has been turned into an evil. 9Wild beasts flee the dangers they see; 9when they have escaped them, they are free from care; 9we are tormented both by what is to come and by what is past. 9Many of our goods harm us, for memory brings back the torment of fear, and foresight anticipates it. 9No one is wretched only from present things. 9Farewell.